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ETF Spotlight: Large-Cap Dividend Stocks

ETF Spotlight on the WisdomTree LargeCap Dividend Fund (DLN) , part of an ongoing series.

Assets : $1.6 billion.

Objective : The WisdomTree LargeCap Dividend Fund tries to reflect the performance of the WisdomTree LargeCap Dividend Index, which is comprised of the 300 largest companies that have paid regular cash dividends in the 12 months prior to the index construction and weights holdings based on projected cash dividends over the next year. [Want Dividends, But Not Heavy Utilities Exposure? Try These ETFs]

DLN is down 0.7% over the past month, up 4.9% over the last three months, up 13.3% year-to-date and up 25.5% over the past year.

The ETF is 6.2% above its 200-day exponential moving average.

“WisdomTree LargeCap Dividend DLN is a handy U.S. equity core holding for investors who want a value tilt and extra income,” according to Morningstar analyst Samuel Lee. “This fund targets high-dividend-paying companies and forgoes the standard market-capitalization weighting scheme used by common market indexes, such as the S&P 500.”

“Historically, a large portion of the returns from investing in stocks has come from dividends,” Lee added. “By weighting stocks by total dollar payout, rather than by dividend yield, this fund attempts to avoid overweighting stocks that are likely to cut their dividends.